


so why don't we go somewhere only we know

by akutagi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Sad Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi Friendship, Yamaguchi Tadashi-centric, treehouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24701629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akutagi/pseuds/akutagi
Summary: Most importantly, there was no bullying or shy glances from classmates. Just a kid who didn’t have to cover up his freckled cheeks or avoid certain routes home in order to end up with the least amount of violet circles as possible.He did most of his schoolwork in that space, plus brought up handheld consoles, books, action figures, or anything else that caught his attention at the time.Laying on a pillow he’d brought from his room, he realized that this little compact home was enough. Nothing too flashy or extremely, but cozy and comforting. And that was all Yamaguchi needed from the place or anything in his life at that time, so he turned onto his side and let his eyes drift close, feeling grateful for his private paradise.---A story of how Yamaguchi found solace in the treehouse outside his home, followed by the ups and downs that the place would keep inside its walls.
Relationships: possible kagehina if you want to, squint for hinted tsukishima/yamaguchi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	so why don't we go somewhere only we know

**Author's Note:**

> [steps up to stage and taps on mic] i love yamaguchi and i will not apologize thank you for coming to my tedtalk
> 
> yes . yamaguchi fic but only hinted tsukiyama bc that ship brings me too much joy not to include vjkdasd 
> 
> kinda funny im uploading this on sugas bday but in my defense he does come up later so . take that as you will (happy b day suga)
> 
> also big shoutout to @kowoushi on twt for dealing we me in the dms with this fic (as well as others) but especially this one + betareading it ! ilyyy !!
> 
> fic title and opening lyrics from song 'somewhere only we know' !

_ And if you have a minute, why don't we go _

_ Talk about it somewhere only we know? _

_ This could be the end of everything _

_ So why don't we go _

_ Somewhere only we know? _

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ★ﾟ･:*:･｡✧

Maybe it was the wood creaking underneath him, or perhaps it was the slits of sunlight that would make its way inside, but Yamaguchi adored his home away from home. 

Which wasn’t that far by any means, just a few paces away from the backdoor and up a few flimsy boards nailed to a tree. 

The house itself wasn’t luxurious or extravagant in the slightest. It clearly showcased its wear to anyone passing by, but that didn’t matter to him. What Tadashi cared about most was that he could be whoever up in the boxed home.

Depending on the day he could be a traveler setting to another destination, a space cadet who may have accidentally seen extraterrestrial life through the pseudo-ship's blinds that were coming off the hinges, or anything else that came into his middle school imagination.

Most importantly, there was no bullying or shy glances from classmates. Just a kid who didn’t have to cover up his freckled cheeks or avoid certain routes home in order to end up with the least amount of violet circles as possible.

He did most of his schoolwork in that space, plus brought up handheld consoles, books, action figures, or anything else that caught his attention at the time.

Laying on a pillow he’d brought from his room, he realized that this little compact home was enough. Nothing too flashy or extremely, but cozy and comforting. And that was all Yamaguchi needed from the place or anything in his life at that time, so he turned onto his side and let his eyes drift close, feeling grateful for his private paradise.

###

“You seriously don’t think it feels crowded in here?”

“No! But also I’m not as tall as you, Tsukki, so that might explain it.” The brunette let the words slip between his lips before tensing up, hoping not to offend his newfound friend.

Him and Tsukishima, or rather Tsukki, had been friends for only around a month before Yamaguchi had introduced both his homes. He was hesitant at first, not fully equipped with lending his escape to find root in his now resurrected social life. But he came to the realization that he’d eventually have the blond over quickly.

Tsukishima was still rubbing his head from where he’d bumped it coming in when he responded to the other. “So what exactly did you want to show me up here?” 

“Ah, right! One second, I just need to reach behind you.” Shifting around the other, he grabbed out his binder that was stashed in the bookshelf/ mounted piece of wood on the back wall. The binder itself looked like it was on the verge of collapsing, the cover scraped and littered with stray wood clippings.

The speckled boy looked perplexed, not knowing what to expect from the content inside. Hands out behind him for extra support, he decided to voice out his worry. “This is the important thing that you wanted to share with me? A binder full of…. I don’t even  _ know  _ what.”

He had confidence and was even eager to show him what was inside before he came over, but whenever it came to Tsukki, Yamaguchi felt differing waves of pressure. This was his first real friend in… forever really, and he didn’t want to somehow mess that up but accidentally acting a certain way. 

Refusing to look at the other’s lenses, Yamaguchi looked down at the binder on the table in front of them. “You really like dinosaurs a-and that thing, and when we were over your house I remember not seeing these in your room so…” He stopped and flipped over to a random page in the binder before finally looking at the other, face less confused and now replaced with curiosity. 

He reached in and grabbed a card from the pocketed slot, the rays outside making the holographics shine brighter and drew more attention. “This is my Vaporeon card, which is an eeveelution. You get it?”

“Honestly? I got none of that. What the hell is all of this?” He was closer to the clear row of cards on the table, eyes tracing over each one, hand motioned as if to flip to unveil more.

“You seriously don’t know what Pokémon is?!” Yamaguchi was shocked, mouth left gaped open and making a circle. 

“I seriously don’t.” His voice was as monotone as it usually was, but with the underlying emotion of intrigue.

“Okay, so basically what I’m talking about are the evaluations, or nexts steps to Pokémons. In this case I’d be Eevee and all their forms. This one uses a water stone and is  _ my  _ personal favorite, but I think yours could be Espeon…” 

Tadashi trailed on, trying to explain the whole premise while not trying to overwhelm the other. Tsukishima was very patient, albeit very vocal about certain aspects of the whole system. At some point Yamaguchi took out his copy of Diamond and let Tsukishima play (and failed to play correctly).

A few days later, Tsukishima stole his brother’s copy of Pearl and the two ended with the disagreement of Tadashi using cheat codes to win. He didn’t need a bug to know that Tsukishima’s full grass type team was no match for his Infernape. 

Whenever Kei was in the small outside apartment, Yamaguchi couldn’t help but notice how much bigger and grander the room felt in comparison.

###

With volleyball and high school work piling up, the daily visits outside to his humble getaway started to dwindle. Another factor happened to be the increase in snow and decrease in temperature, which made Yamaguchi fear for a cold inside that unheated house.

Instead he reminisced on past trips inside from the comfort of his window, which had a clear view from inside and above his desk. The snowfall had died down, but wasn’t entirely gone, leaving his window more cloudy than normal.

After an undetermined amount of gazing and daydreams, he was interrupted by his mother telling him dinner was done and on the table. He thanked her and told his mother that he’d be down in a moment.

He stood up and left his homework half done, but not before taking one last moment to take a look at the brown wood draped in white freckles. Shuffling down the steps, he felt a rising excitement at the idea that soon he’d get to venture inside once the seasons changed.

###

He was honestly shocked that they could all fit inside the treehouse, granted leg room wasn’t that accessible to anyone besides Noya or Hinata. Sometimes being smaller had its perks, Tadashi supposed.

Somehow everyone had invited themselves over for a hangout at his place, and once Tanaka saw the building in the back, couldn’t help but climb inside…. followed by everyone else following suit. He only could have imagined the girls coming and how much more tight the inside space would be. 

Sure they had snacks and refreshments, the windows open to make sure they wouldn’t pass out due to lack of air, but there wasn’t much they could do without the mobility. 

So instead they just… talked. About anything, light hearted and heavier topics, volleyball related and others not so much, everything in between.

Yamaguchi stayed silent for a majority of the time, feeling like he was a bad host. He was just so captured in seeing his teammates in a whole new frame, the clear picture now looking out of focus. Eventually he did speak and the warm feedback he’d gotten made him talk more.

They all stopped once most of them were crying, or at the very least tearing up, and Hinata got a phone call asking if he could come back to look after his little sister while his mother quickly went to the store.

Somehow it became a tradition that every few weeks they would all meet at Yamaguchi’s house and sneak into the backyard with legs tucked in tight and hearts open, as cliche as that sounded. 

He looked forward to it, feeling like he had a true family to welcome inside his private home with open arms and an unlatched door.

###

The weather forecast varied in accuracies, due to the patterns usually being unpredictable. However, when most professionals predicted an approaching storm that would be passing by in the nighttime and concluding by morning, Yamaguchi assumed that was most likely going to happen.

He thought nothing of it at the time, instead getting ready for bed and hoping that surrounding houses and businesses would be okay. Maybe if he was still awake when it passed by his house then he would have done something. But what could he have done to prevent it?

Letting his tiredness engulf him whole, the storm came and went, as well as another powerful force in Tadashi’s life.

###

He awoke to birds chirping, which was unusual but not as unpleasant or persistent as his ringing phone alarm.

After rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes, he got changed and ready to eat something for breakfast. Wearing the hazelnut slippers that Tsukki had gotten him last holiday season, he made his way down the carpeted steps.

His mother was at the stove, making what appeared like scrambled eggs while having the television on for background noise. The other piece of information that made Yamaguchi tilt his head was that the backdoor was covered by it’s velvet curtains.

It usually was open in the morning to let in natural light and in turn make the home brighter. Granted he didn’t open up his window this morning, but that was a coin flip’s chance of doing so. This was not.

He went over to unveil the outside before his mother scolded him to sit down. The whole ordeal made his once empty stomach feeling full, having eaten too many anxious thoughts and concerns at the table.

Looking back up, he saw his mother’s eye focused on the meal she was making. She  _ looked  _ focused, but it was clear that her mind was elsewhere. She must have noticed Yamaguchi staring because she looked up at him and gave a reassuring smile that only mothers could give before turning back around. 

After a little bit of daydreaming and listening to the day time soap opera on the tv, his mother came back and placed the plate before sitting down next to him.

While eating, she watched him very intently, which made him fidget in his seat. Once around half was down, he put down the fork and went to ask for answers. “Mom, is everything okay?”

She nodded enough that her brunette bangs swept from place and became random. “Yep, everything’s fine!”

He shifted to face his mother, knees clashing from the movement. Getting hold of his mother’s hands, he cupped them in his own. “Could you just come out and say it? I-I’d like to know, Mom. Especially if it’s like, affecting me.”

Swallowing and trying to act vain, she placed another smile, but this time it didn’t feel as comforting. “You know how there was a storm last night?” He nodded, a sign also for her to continue. “Well, for the most part we were fine, just a little debris from branches, but…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, making Yamaguchi’s hands tremble and lose their grip from the now abundant sweat. “Mom?” he said with unwanted desperation.

“We can make another one, Tadashi. I’m sorry-“ Before she could continue, Yamaguchi was already out the door and then proceeded to run and then… stopped. Everything stopped for a moment. There were no birds or moms, only Tadashi and his treehouse, or what remained of it that is.

Planks littered the grassy backyard, as well as complimentary branches. The whole front was now gone, giving an x-ray view inside. It was wrecked, unsalvageable. Some things were in tacted, but the place as a whole was lost.

In the whole timeline of having the treehouse, he never took a picture. A simple feat honestly, most people with the current technology would have snapped and posted a pic nonchalantly. The thought never crossed his mind because this was his own private place, so he never thought that the only place this would live on was his mind.

All of a sudden, his knees felt like twigs and they snapped under the pressure of it all, hitting the lawn hard. Gripping the grass inbewteened shaking fingers, he folded over and began to cry out, not loud outside but on the inside he was shouting through the tears.

He only stopped to go back inside when the checkered face’s tears began to mix with the skys, shirt and person becoming more soaked at each passing moment. 

Turning he saw his own mother’s face, tainted with similar tears. He cried more from that until there were no tears left to shed, just Yamaguchi feeling as hollow as the torn house.

###

It shouldn’t have been a big deal, he knew that. Saying that over and over didn’t help in the slightest.

His schoolwork decreased not by much, but enough that his teachers gave concerned looks while passing back assignments. The darkness under his eyes took away from those spots that littered his face, and he didn’t know if he should be grateful, since now people seemed more focused on why the bags under his eyes were that hue and size.

The volleyball club was fine until it wasn’t. Most people probably shook the whole thing up to external issues at home or maybe with Tsukishima, but nothing this miniature.

It was when Hinata came up with unmatched enthusiasm and talked about how he was ecstatic thinking about the next ‘Treehouse Talk’ that Yamaguchi broke down. Thankfully, Tsukki was nearby, who scooped up a sobbing pinch server into his arms, drawing circles on his hunched back and giving comforting sweet nothings. 

The rest of the practice was canceled, which he was both thankful and ungrateful for. He didn’t know how he was going to continue after being a crybaby in the gym in front of everyone, but it was a shameful walk home as he knew that he was the sole reason.

After Tsukki gave him another hug and split off to the remainder of his route home, his immediate thought, however silly it was, was to go inside the familiar house in the tree. Since that was not an option, he made his bed and wrapped himself in the darkness of his covers, hoping that maybe this would be the night he’d wake up and everything was a dream. A really twisted and messed up dream. 

###

A few days later he woke up to his mother knocking on the door, saying that a friend was over to see him. If he knew it wasn’t his blond friend, then maybe he would have changed into something that wasn’t maroon sweats with childhood cartoons on them, or actually do his hair instead of putting it in a very low and short ponytail.

Squinting at the sudden light from outside, he started and Kageyama, who had arms crossed over his torso. For someone who approached his doorstep, he didn’t look like he wanted to be there.

“Can I help you….?” He asked, trying to puzzle any reason as to why he would be here on a weekend at nine in the morning. 

“Yeah, um, could you help me with English?” The setter tried to make it seem genuine, but instead it felt like he was held at gunpoint or reading a script.

“I thought we already talked about how Yachi’s better at English?”

Looking away, he tried to reassure him about his current concern. “She’s unavailable for today.”

Another thing that Yamaguchi noted was that there was no paper to be seen in the other’s grip. He felt like he was on a reality show, waiting for a camera crew to stumble outside the front bushes. “Are you pranking me right now?”

Kageyama mumbled something, though the brunette couldn’t quite catch it. He was about to verify or disprove the claim, but he didn’t get the chance, being cut off by familiar voices outside.

‘ _ You could have killed me, Shittysukishima!’ _

_ ‘And then I would have to take over all your work, which clearly hasn’t been much.’ _

_ ‘Hey!-‘ _

_ ‘Both of you quit it, please!’ _

_ ‘Sorry, Daichi!’ _

The conversation rang throughout the house and outside, but Yamaguchi wanted to see how the player in front of him fit into place. “Kageyama.”

He must have realized he had no chance, or just didn’t care in general, since he moved out of the doorway and onto the front lawn. While they both took the walk to the outside, Kageyama breathed out “I told them I’d be a shitty decoy.”

Yamaguchi felt a similar lack of strength now that he did that unfortunate night, the whole sight being too much to handle and unexpected. All the Karasuno crows, even the managers this time, holding tools and wooden planks in hand. Each was doing something different but all towards the same goal.

While he was trying to at least produce one word, Tanaka and Noya were making several of his own towards the setter first year, saying how he should have been better at his duty. In the corner of his eye, he could even see how his mother was handing out refreshments.

Suga had snuck up behind him and wrapped him in a side hug, telling him to stop crying tears he wasn’t aware were streaming. “We all saw how distressed you were about this, and we know it’s not the same thing but… it was the least we could do.” He smiled so genuinely that Yamaguchi felt himself reciprocating without much effort. “Plus, Hinata really wanted another meeting soon, said it’s urgent.”

Apparently overhearing them, the aforementioned ginger peeped in. “Yeah! I’m finally gonna confess to Kageya-“ He stopped, covering his mouth and accidentally dropping the hammer onto the person in question’s foot.

After another moment to take himself in, Suga left and in place Tsukki came into place, holding out a tape measure. “You just going to stand there and make us do all the hard work?” which translated to ‘Are you okay with all this?’

And he was, beyond happy that is. Brushing away a stray tear, he nodded and fell into place next to Yachi, who had the whole idea blueprinted as Tsukishima marked down measures on the other side of him.

He had the memories of the first house and he’d be grateful for them all, but he was excited to have a new space to make more with his found family, excited for them to unofficially-officially move in together. And maybe they’d make more legroom in this space, but it didn’t matter to Tadashi so much as he could call it home once more.

**Author's Note:**

> hey this is my first fic not really surrounding a relationship and instead a single character and their journey, so id appreciate any feedback ! 
> 
> ty for reading and you can find me @akutagi on twt !! til next time <3


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